Chapter 20: - Promotion!

Splash...

Splash...

Splash...

Xue San sat inside a wooden bucket, scrubbing furiously at his body.

The bucket had been borrowed from the camp cooks. It was not a bathing barrel, only something normally used for carrying water.

For Xue San’s height, though, it was more than large enough.

There was even room to spare.

“Heh. Say, do you think something might happen between Master and that general?”

Xue San asked Liang Cheng, who sat at the other end of the tent, while continuing to wash himself.

Liang Cheng glanced at him.

“Even a dog’s nose isn’t as sharp as yours.”

“Hehehe. Of course. Even Fourth Lady’s disguise arts can’t fool my nose.”

“Including shit?”

“...” Xue San.

“AAAAAH! AAAAAAAAH!”

Xue San shrieked and began splashing water over himself again.

This was already his fifth bucket.

For an assassin, attacking someone from behind was the most normal thing in the world.

Xue San could no longer remember how many victims he had killed from behind.

But having one of those victims spray shit into his face?

That was a first.

The only explanation Xue San could come up with was that when he dragged the dagger downward through the man’s body, he had added too much hidden force.

His original intention had been to shred the internal organs along the way.

Who knew the centrifugal force would be so excessive...

“You are absolutely not allowed to tell anyone about this. When we get home, you cannot tell them!”

Xue San spoke to Liang Cheng with utter seriousness.

Liang Cheng shook his head indifferently.

Xue San kept washing and returned to the subject from before.

“Under normal story logic, when a female character disguises herself as a man, there’s a very high chance she’ll eventually end up in the protagonist’s bedchamber. She might act coy and difficult at first, but sooner or later she’ll become utterly devoted to him.”

“Story logic?”

“Yeah. Zhao Min in *The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber* is basically that type, isn’t she? There are plenty of examples. In real life, if a woman likes a man, she still has to consider his looks, personality, sincerity, family background, bride-price, all that stuff. But in fiction, as long as the author wants it, they can always invent ten thousand reasons for women to throw themselves at the protagonist.”

Liang Cheng helplessly took out his waterskin, pulled the stopper, and drank.

“That’s fiction.”

If going outside had been more convenient right now, Liang Cheng’s personality would never have allowed him to sit here watching a naked dwarf bathe while discussing this kind of nonsense.

“I’m telling you, dead zombie, you can’t forget where you came from. Have you forgotten what we actually are?”

Liang Cheng frowned slightly.

Some things he had long since accepted.

Acceptance, however, did not mean understanding.

“To everyone else, maybe it was only a comic. But to us, it was our life.”

“Heh. I don’t have time to discuss philosophy with you. Aiya, now that I think about it, I regret something. When Master left earlier, I only had time to tell him that the general in red armor was actually a woman. I didn’t get the chance to give him proper instructions.”

“Instructions about what?”

“I should’ve told Master that when he reached her command tent, no matter whether there were guards outside, if she told him to wait while someone went in to announce him, he absolutely shouldn’t wait. He should charge straight in!”

“Why?”

“Because that general would probably be bathing. Master would barge in by coincidence and see her completely naked. Then the female general would be humiliated and furious. She might order Master punished, but since Master would be the first man other than her father to see her naked, he’d definitely leave an incredibly deep impression in her heart. And then...”

“Then she has Master dragged outside and beheaded. Master dies.”

“Uh...”

Xue San scratched his hair helplessly and sighed.

“You really are vulgar.”

“You’re the one detached from reality.”

“Life is always more artistic than art. Think about it. Since Master awakened, this is the first woman of any real importance he’s met in this world. If nothing happens between them, if they don’t rub up against each other somehow, if there isn’t even a little foreshadowing planted, doesn’t that feel unreasonable?”

Liang Cheng no longer wanted to speak.

He suspected the dwarf’s body was not the only thing that had failed to develop properly.

His brain might have been affected too.

Perhaps Qin Siyu had been exactly this kind of person.

He had always been shorter than his peers.

His health had been poor.

So he liked staying home.

And his head was filled with fantasies.

That personality and those habits had been inherited almost perfectly by the character he created, Xue San.

“Think about it. That woman can disguise herself as a man and still command an army. Heh. Her background definitely isn’t ordinary. If Master actually takes her in, that’ll be useful to us too. It’d be like receiving venture capital during the startup phase, except the investor also throws herself at you to make sure you accept the money. If it works out, the most we lose is one load of Master’s ten thousand descendants.”

“She isn’t worthy.”

“Mm? Don’t say that. Our Master is still pretty outstanding.”

“I meant the woman. She is not worthy of Master.”

Xue San frowned.

He draped both arms over the rim of the bucket and stared at Liang Cheng.

“Fuck me. You’re licking him this shamelessly now?”

“With us here, Master can marry the finest woman in this entire world.”

Xue San froze.

He blinked.

He could not actually refute that statement.

Deep down, he even agreed.

After a brief silence, however, he still asked:

“But right now, we’re still weak. Those Barbarians weren’t much. One-on-one, even against the kind of bastard whose body glows, we can still kill them through our abilities and experience. Ordinary soldiers coming one at a time are just delivering themselves to their deaths. Five or six at once would only cost us a little effort. But what about twenty? Fifty? A hundred?”

“You saw those Yan cavalry yourself. If fifty cavalrymen keep forming up and taking turns charging you on open ground, with no terrain advantage to exploit, then even if you’re a zombie, how many rounds can you survive?”

Liang Cheng turned his head and looked at the injury on his left arm.

“We have only recovered a little.”

Compared with their former peaks, compared with their true strength, what they had recovered now was only the tip of an iceberg.

“Who knows how we’re supposed to recover more? If we could regain just a little more strength, Master wouldn’t be the one going to meet that woman. We’d simply fight through ten thousand troops, tie her up, and deliver her straight to Master’s bed.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

“Notice what?”

Curiosity appeared on Xue San’s face.

“Master’s strength,” Liang Cheng replied.

The image of the Barbarian rider Master had chopped down immediately surfaced in Xue San’s mind.

“You mean how much strength we can recover, and whether we can keep recovering, still depends on Master?”

“I only know that before Master woke up, we were ordinary people.”

“Ha. And Master hasn’t even been awake that long. Yet his strength suddenly became comparable to that of an adult man who has trained for years. During the march, I kept thinking Master wouldn’t be able to hold out, but he endured all the way through.”

“Perhaps Master himself has not truly noticed it yet.”

Liang Cheng paused.

“Perhaps the ones improving are not only us.”

...

Zheng Fan reached the command tent.

There were not many soldiers standing guard outside.

Only the elderly swordsman who carried his sword in his arms stood at the entrance.

He did not make Zheng Fan wait.

The moment Zheng Fan approached, the old man lifted the tent flap and gestured for him to enter.

Thanks to Xue San, Zheng Fan already knew the general was a woman disguised as a man.

And no, she was not bathing.

She still wore that eye-catching set of red armor.

Kneeling behind a low desk, she flipped through several letters.

There was a clean heroic sharpness between her brows.

After entering, Zheng Fan hesitated briefly, then dropped to one knee.

“Greetings, General.”

He did not call himself “this subordinate officer” again.

The general tossed the letter in her hand onto the desk and studied Zheng Fan with obvious interest.

“You earned quite a lot of merit this time. I intend to reward you.”

Zheng Fan said nothing.

He merely raised his head and looked at her.

His gaze lingered a little longer around her throat.

Unfortunately, the armor covered enough that he could not clearly make out whether she had an Adam’s apple.

More importantly, the armor also made it impossible to tell what sort of figure she had.

Armor concealed the body far better than any bra ever could.

Zheng Fan had no idea why these were the thoughts running through his head at a moment like this.

Probably because he was nervous.

His mind was wandering instinctively.

A man had two brains.

Both looked rather like walnuts.

Generally speaking, whenever one of them was actively functioning, the other tended to become sluggish.

The general herself became slightly awkward as well.

People in positions of authority were probably accustomed to a certain ritual.

They announced they intended to reward someone.

The person below immediately declared his loyalty and shouted that serving the boss was reward enough.

Naturally, nobody was supposed to take those words seriously.

But everyone usually followed the procedure.

The man kneeling in front of her, however, appeared to have no intention of cooperating with the performance.

A smile tugged at the general’s lips.

“I’ll give you two rewards to choose from. First, you can enter my Personal Guard Battalion and become a household retainer of the Li Clan. After a couple of years, whether you are posted outside or remain with the main household, there will be plenty of roads open to you.”

She paused.

“The second option... You’re from Tiger Head City, correct?”

“Yes.”

“The Ministry of War and Ministry of Revenue issued an edict not long ago. Mounted bandits have been attacking merchant caravans more frequently in recent years, so every fortress city has been ordered to organize its own merchant-protection force.”

“Of course, the ministries did not allocate a single coin of military funding or a single weapon. All they provided was an authorized establishment of three hundred men. Everything else must be handled locally.”

“So the second reward is the post of Lieutenant Commander of Merchant Protection for the Tiger Head City region.”

By this point, even the general herself seemed to feel embarrassed continuing the offer.

She paused, then said:

“Forget it. When the army moves out tomorrow, come back with me to the Li Clan. Your future prospects will not...”

“I choose the second!”

Zheng Fan immediately raised his head and answered.

The general’s words stopped dead.

She stared at him in disbelief.

“Which... one?”

Without the slightest hesitation, Zheng Fan repeated:

“The second.”

Better to be the head of a chicken than the tail of a phoenix.

In Tiger Head City, he at least had seven Demon Kings under him, calling him Master all day with enough second-year syndrome to choke a room.

What kind of brain damage would make him run over to her place and become a household retainer?

More importantly, Zheng Fan knew exactly how capable he really was.

All the merit he had earned this time had basically come from standing on the sidelines while Liang Cheng handed him a head to hold.

If he really left these subordinates behind and went out alone to make his way in the world, Zheng Fan felt he would probably die without ever figuring out what killed him.

“You won’t regret it?”

Zheng Fan drew a deep breath.

He shook his head solemnly.

“No regrets.”

“Can you tell me why? Is becoming a household retainer of my Li Clan truly so beneath you?”

Zheng Fan answered at once:

“Tiger Head City is my home. I can’t bear to leave it.”

[End of Chapter 20]